Buddhism at Google?

Google is at the forefront of many management, organisational and HR innovations (including developing a remarkable quantitative approach to recruitment), so any leadership development initiative at Google is usually worth paying attention to.

It's therefore noteworthy that Google University now has a "school of personal growth" as one of its four main faculties (the others focus on workplace essentials, leadership development, and Google life and culture). It's run by Chade-Meng Tan, a software engineer who is also a Buddhist, and includes instruction in mindfulness meditation from Norman Fischer, a zen priest and one of the Dharma Heirs of Suzuki Roshi (author of Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind). Tan said

The school's ethos could be a blueprint for workplace education, as "Google wants to help Googlers grow as human beings on all levels - emotional, mental, physical and 'beyond the self'."

Tan's predecessor, Monika Broeker, notes that - like most things in Google - this program has been subjected to intense quantitative scrutiny to assess its impact:

“If you want executive management support, you better back it up with data,” Broecker said. “We did a lot of research as to the effectiveness of our programs. One of the questions [we researched] was whether we could show that people who had gone through our programs were happier in Google than people who had not gone through our programs. And we definitely had data that showed that this was the case.”

Read more at Guardian Online and Chief Learning Officer Online.